Book Blog: February 2023
[4 weeks ago] Me: I’ll totally write a blog about something else before another book blog.
[today] Me: Ah, well, better luck this month.
So here we are, more than a week into March and I’m just now ready to share my favorite books from February. It feels a bit exciting (but also unnerving) to be back in a busier place with travel picking up a bit as well as spending more time catching up with friends. That being said, even though it’s the year’s shortest month, it’s cold and wet (see pajamas and cat, above) so here are my favorites from February’s 12 books!
Fiction
Melissa (Alex Gino): What a lovely and wonderfully kind book about Melissa, a transgender girl trying to navigate fourth grade. Everyone calls Melissa George and thinks she is a boy. The book opens with her reading girls’ magazines in the bathroom, learning about fashion and makeup and seeing herself in the pages. It doesn’t yet feel safe for her to share this with her mom, brother, or best friend Kelly, but as the book progresses it becomes harder for Melissa to hide who she is. Gino has written a very sensible and age-appropriate book, with Melissa taking place in normal grade-appropriate activities and talking about what it’s like to be transgender in a middle-elementary school appropriate way. This would be a great book for a kid to read to think about how to be kind to their classmates, as the underlying themes are about acceptance, kindness, and compassion.
Third Girl (Agatha Christie): In this mystery, Poirot is trying to find a “Third Girl,” the name for a third roommate who joins two other London flatmates. This particular third girl, Norma, wanders into Poirot’s house confused, convinced that she has murdered someone, but she doesn’t know who it was. Before he can fully understand her situation she wanders out, and now Poirot, along with his literary friend Mrs. Oliver, and attempting to figure this out together. This was a great book because of trickery and unreliable people, but it still came together in a believable way.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Erika L Sanchez): This book was intense, beautiful, and touching. Younger daughter Julia has always been negatively compared to her older sister Olga, but after Olga’s horrible death things feel even worse for Julia. She has disapproving Mexican parents, and, as a first-generation American, she is caught between multiple cultures. As a white American, I learn so much from stories of people who have grown up so differently than me, who are navigating America with very different experiences.
Non-Fiction
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Roxane Gay): This book was phenomenal, a gutting and wrenching story of Gay’s experience as she navigated life after being raped at 12 years old, adding layers and layers to her body to build a personal fortress to keep her safe. Nothing is off-limits as she writes boldly and openly about being female, Black, and obese, and how the world treats her with such distain. She is powerful and bold.
Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age (Bruce Feiler): This was exactly the book that I needed to read at this time, as I’m in the middle of three disruptive life changes (job, family, health) and instead of something that is formulaic and dry, this book really brings transitions to life with so many personal stories, both from the author and the folks that he interviewed for his Life Story Project. I found myself folding down pages that sparked ideas, including finding something to mark the beginning and end of a change (I bought a stuffed liver to celebrate my autoimmune hepatitis remission!) or writing down parts of your story to weave it together (on my to-do list). This book was inspiring in a very relatable way — regular people moving through incredibly difficult circumstances — but not overly positive or rah-rah and tone deaf. I imagine I will return to this book over and over again to incorporate new practices into my life as I continue to experience transitions.
Small Fry: A Memoir (Lisa Brennan-Jobs): If you think Steve Jobs was an asshole, don’t worry — he is. Lisa Brennan-Jobs shares her experience as his daughter, growing up as someone who is primarily raised by her mother and not by her father, though he dips in and out of her life. I found the story to be raw and really sad, that Brennon-Jobs is desperate to get her dad’s love and he is focused on himself and/or anyone else. I am always a bit confused when people dump on folks for who they are — Brennan-Jobs was born to her parents with no choice to it, and even though she had many privileges, what I took away from the book was that, like most of us, all she wanted was to belong and to be loved, and it just doesn’t matter who you are to feel that way.
Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Winsdor Sisters (Andrew Morton): I wish I would’ve read this book before Morton’s book about The Queen, but I really appreciated how this book focused on the relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret, that even though it was often portrayed in the media as always adversarial (cough, the Crown, cough) that the sisters remained close throughout their lives, ultimately dedicated to family and the monarchy despite individual desires and needs.
Soooo… here’s to a blog about something other than books in the near future :)
Cheers, S
